


Reality Today, Illusion Tomorrow

by noisystar



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: A lot of introspection, Angst, Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Spoilers, Depression, Fluff, Grief/Mourning, Heartbreak, Hurt/Comfort, Loss, Other, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-08
Updated: 2018-10-15
Packaged: 2019-05-19 17:55:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 8
Words: 19,462
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14878541
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/noisystar/pseuds/noisystar
Summary: Tony can’t believe that Peter is gone -And when he’s back, he can’t believe that he’s real.Thanos made sure of that.(A twisty story full of mental torture for both Tony and the reader.)





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Wrote this after watching the last scene between Tony and Peter. I am dead.
> 
> Then this turned into a whole story ha. Following Tony as he struggles with the inexistence/existence(?) of Peter, and everyone else who was lost to Thanos.
> 
> i'm honestly the worst with titles,,

Peter was a dash of red swirling through the air, sparkling as the uninhibited sunlight crowded around him. His four new mechanical appendages sparked out from the suit like a star, staking into the ground for his landing.

“Whoa - Mr. Stark -“ Spider-Man fumbled to voice words, words that didn’t exist, in awe of his new suit. “I don’t ...”

Tony grinned, warmer than usual. Than necessary. It was just a suit.

Had he ever hugged Peter?

He needed to, he realized. He needed Peter here. Peter looked up at Tony with glowing reverence, just a boy. Did Peter even know the way Tony felt about him? Did Tony ever tell him? He needed Peter more than Peter needed him, and, maybe, if Peter knew that, he wouldn’t ever go.

Tony pulled Peter in and slung his arms around him, securing him, searching for a way to tell him how he felt.

“Peter, you’re alright.” Tony smiled into Peter’s hair, smelling the dank of New York on him, the rough side of it. The scent was dry as dust, like the rubble of neglected housing projects and abandoned junk yards, and the kind of bitter that reminded Tony of a ruined, alien landscape. Somewhere Peter didn’t belong. Tony kept pulling his arms around Peter tighter, like he couldn’t hold him tightly enough, like no matter how pressed together they were, he couldn’t feel him there.

“Mr. Stark,” Peter said, and Tony told himself that Peter’s voice was playful, tossing his name as banter. He was protesting, as teenagers do, the way Tony held him, the way he held him like he would never let Peter go. Tony didn’t want to let him go. _I don’t want to go I don’t want to go I don’t -_

“You’ll be alright.” Why couldn’t he say anything else?

“I don’t feel...” Peter’s voice faded as Tony crushed him further against his chest, he couldn’t keep him close enough; if he was only closer, and would stay there, with Tony, where he could feel him in his arms — he’d be okay, he wouldn’t be the one to go.

Tony said, into Peter’s wafting hair, “You’re alright.” That’s not what he wanted to say, but there wasn’t time to fix it. He only had a moment, and he had used it. There was no way to go back. He could still feel Peter’s arms around him, the way he’d imagined them. He could still feel his hair between his fingers, his ear against his palm, the shape of Peter’s nose buried into his shoulder.

Had he ever hugged Peter, like he loved him?

Like this, with Peter perfect in his arms, Peter with him...

But it was just Tony.

Peter was gone.

It was only Tony, the only person standing on the ruined planet, the only person left with his existence, and the only person left to hear everything he wished he had said before Peter was gone.


	2. Lost

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony gets his happy ending, because he needs one.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Now including Captain America and Winter Soldier! And a bunch of other Avengers & friends in the background.

It had taken long, far too long, for Tony to accept a reality in which half of his friends had been seared out of existence. He had rejected it, until it had crushed him into an empty shell of armor and all that was left was to fight and count every tear for every moment of every one of their lives gone. For so long Tony had gone without accepting their inexistences as true that, when he found a way to bring them back, he wasn't sure if he'd be able to believe they were real. He might question every smile, every word, wonder if he was really just lost in his own hopelessness, caged in iron regret.

But without them, he knew there was nothing; nothing like the feeling of loss. Being the only one left, and knowing it was all your fault that everyone was gone.

They were dead.

No, worse than dead. They hadn’t even been given the courtesy of death, the chance that their souls might cross over to a perfect, incorruptible existence, the chance that they might be reborn, the chance that their soul might disperse into the universe and fertilize the existence of something else, of another being’s happiness. To mean something.

Tony had feared they would even crumble from his memory, eventually. Ash by ash.

Wanda.

Bucky - no, oh _Steve_ , Tony hadn't been there for him - _oh god_ -

 _Peter_. God _dammit_ no, not him… _not him. Please, no, please no please no_ -

Tony could still feel the weight of the boy’s hand in his growing fainter, his body beginning to float away. His empty arms tingled with it, like a dream, uncertain if the memory was ever real; this _boy_ , he was _his_ , _Tony’s_. And Peter had to stare into his eyes, look right at him-- _Tony had done this to him--_ as Tony’s failure slowly tore his body up into silence, into shreds of everything he never got to be, into ashes of the meaning he was meant to have had in the universe, until there was nothing left of him. Not even his death.

Tony had wondered if being left with his own existence had been a crueler fate. He couldn’t so much as bring himself to end his own life; he didn’t deserve a death. So, he had done the only thing he could do. He could never do _right_ , because nothing would be right enough to even begin to fill the void that he had torn with his own two hands, the nothingness that Peter and everyone had become. But he could fight for them, fight for every damn tear of memories that never would be.

He remembered how agonizingly Peter had withered, how excruciatingly long Peter had had to suffer as his body crumbled - _why, why him?_   Why was he the one to suffer so as his existence was burned away? He was just a kid. He didn't deserve that.

So the ones that were left behind went to battle, and Tony fought with them. _God,_ Tony had fought with more than what he had in him. He had fought so beyond his pain, the debilitation of his loss, that by the time Thanos was losing, by the time Thanos was writhing between existence and nothingness as the universe swallowed him and cut him to pieces, all Tony could feel anymore was the broken shreds of metal armor falling away from his body. The burden of it all, stripping away. Even that, though, he wasn’t certain of, without being able to feel the breeze that must have been there to replace it.

Now, shocks of green were sprouting between Tony’s fingers, vibrant in the setting sun, painting quickly the stretched and ruined battlefield. Without his armor, the skeletal earth—now Thanos’s grave—was painful under his beaten knees, but soon cushions of soil and grass were radiating across it, blooming all across the nothing where his friends had dissipated, bringing life back.

Then, outlines of them burst out of nothing, like gemstones shattering into light. Faces filled in, familiar as a dream, shimmering like a mirage, taunting Tony’s desiccated heart.

He choked when he realized they were really there, muted drops of twilight drifting around them. A fairytale…

_Them._

Steve was the first to devour one of them in sobbing, kaleidoscopic laughter— _Bucky_ , and his lost, puppy-dog eyes (suddenly there was no such thing as Bucky killing his parents, and Steve lying to him about it; it didn't matter anymore)—the both of them tumbling breathlessly to the earth before Bucky was even all there. He woke up wreathed in Steve’s tears and kisses and plumes of sunlight.

Tony watched, just as breathless, as Wanda fell into the arms of Nat, and those of their broken friends who had fought for her; he watched as T’Challa was swept up by who was left of his Wakanda family, each moment another stab of disbelief through Tony's heart. A fragmented cry prickled over Tony’s lips, reminded him that he was numb, and his ears filled with the soft tones of an easy paradise. It was alien when, only moments ago, there was only the noise of metal cracking through bones and flesh, and disintegration.

Maybe his eardrums had busted from listening to Thanos' self-deifying diatribes made up with the moral awareness of a lawn mower.

The flutter of humor was a strange taste, but it meant something — it meant that this was real. Rhodey was the one to help Tony up off of his knees, and that hearty contact brought everything shattering in.

“You alright, Tony?” Rhodey said, pulling Tony up with his War Machine hands. He bleeding and bruised face looked as though it couldn't stop smiling if he tried. “Bad hair day?”

Tony stretched his lips in something going towards a smile, and should’ve had a clever quip in return, but it just wasn’t in him. Not yet. Something was missing, keeping his heart stuck, afraid to start beating again.

Then, heavy sunlight trickled towards the horizon and blew into dust, lifted by the shape of a boy. Jeweled sparks blinked across him until they coalesced into Peter—Peter pop-culture-reference-slinging _Parker_ —into his face, into sweeps of gentle eyelashes, a dulcet mouth, his features too quiet and too soft to look right on him.

It was enough to send Tony’s heart racing. He pushed forward, lost and stumbling, careening towards the earth and somehow staying afloat. It was _him_ , his boy, he _needed_ him - Tony caught Peter in his arms, wrapped him up in his chest, his lips pressing with undeserving gratitude to Peter’s head. Every sound that came out of his throat was tangled, every plea, every confession — _damn it,_ he finally had the chance to tell him everything he needed and he was as tongue-tied as a nerd at the jock lunch table.

“Mr. Stark," Tony felt Peter's voice humming against his chest,  _real_ ; "Am I having that dream again?" His voice sounded so  _normal_ , not tired, not like he had been gone for  _years_. "The one where we are Spider-Man and Iron Man, like we are always wearing our suits, you know, and, we even get married in them, and then we have a kid named Iron Spider Boy because I guess my brain isn’t very creative with baby names and I don’t think I can handle another one, another dream where I have a kid I mean, have you ever read blogs about how painful and gross pregnancy actually is? Think of sneezing, but the mucous just builds up for nine months. Especially when your dream-self lays eggs because you’re a Spider-Man, it’s not pretty, and somehow I have a very detailed idea about how it would work, if you want to hear - ”

"Peter, Peter," Tony sobbed; this was too much of Peter, all at once. It wasn't right yet, but Tony tried to cope. “You gotta slow down kid. I just finished... ah, playing a game of hackey sack with Skid-Mark Chin and I was the hackey sack — go back to married, try that again. Did we get married to... other people?” Tony was really feeling the rust on his sleight of word. He wasn't ready for this. 

“We have a kid together! I’m not a home-wrecker!” Peter's feigned shock was lost in a voice trembling with giddiness.

Tony had to keep it up, the distraction; he didn't know how to do anything else. "Um. Alright. Hm. So. Was the father-son dynamic not clear enough?"

“Uh- oh… oh. Oh." Peter's fingers dug into Tony's shirt, his hands climbing up and down his back. "This... isn't another dream." He was suddenly stiff in Tony's arms, his face carefully buried into Tony's chest. "Uh. Shit.”

“Peter!" Tony choked a tearful laugh, the dusky pinks and blues in the sky blurring into one in his vision. He was still not quite caught up with reality. "Okay kid, I’ll take the foul language over the weird dream sequence. Don’t ask me about how I know how to get a man pregnant and we’ll call it even.”

Peter swallowed. “Uh, sure. Wait, you can get a man - " 

"Let's pick up the comedy routine later, there's something I need you to know," Tony said softly, into a feathering of Peter's hair.

Tony felt Peter's body start to fold, resting against his. Tony still didn't know if he could really _feel_ him. "Y-yeah?" Peter's voice was a whimper.

Gently, unwillingly, Tony eased them apart. The press of Peter's head under his chin drifted away and his hair fell as it was unrumpled, and then Tony saw the brown of Peter's eyes rush to meet his. His eyes were a warm, night sky, set in a face that shouldn't have been as ashen as it was. Should never have had to know the things that had turned into the fears buried in the skin around his eyes, in the twinge in his forehead.   
  
Tony could hardly breathe. He couldn't speak. He stared at Peter, as though if he stared at him long enough he'd believe he was real; his hopelessness still lingered, twisting what should have been an expression of relief. He had lived with that numbing hopelessness for so long.

But he didn't need to think about that anymore. He had Peter, here, in his arms. "Peter, I need to tell you," Tony finally choked out, his tongue restlessly poking the inside of his cheeks, his mouth moving but finding no words. "Peter." Everything came out like a scolding, he didn't know how else to talk. 

Suddenly fear was creeping to the surface of Peter's face, his happiness spilling out towards the horizon to chase the sun below it.

"No." Tony asserted, huffing anxiously. "No. No, Peter. Don't do that." His hand leapt to Peter's face, his palm pressing to the curve of his cheek, itching from his chin to his ear to his hair. Tony wanted to wipe away all of Peter's anguish, keep him safe in his hands.

Peter wasn't quite looking at Tony anymore, his eyes hazy, his mouth stressed with dread. "How long was I gone?"

A helpless sob wretched from Tony's throat. He caressed a handful of Peter's face, his arms trembling. 

"Mr. Stark... I'm... scared... I'm scared that I'm not really here." Peter's voice dropped like an iron weight straight through Tony, plummeting endlessly and fading away.

"Don't talk like that, okay kid?" Tony assured, too forcefully, squaring Peter in front of him. He clamped his hands onto him, heavy, insistent. "See? You're here. You're here, Peter, I promise you, there's nothing that will take you away from me," Tony said, and it was true. He dragged Peter back in, holding him as tight as he could, then tighter, desperate. "You're here. I need you here."

Peter's eyes snapped onto Tony's, clung there, like it was the only thing anchoring him to reality. Sobs shuddered through his face, only halfway breaking.

This... this was what it was like, for Peter to know how Tony felt for him.

Tony sighed, nodded, stroked Peter's hair. Wanting to cry, wanting to laugh. "It's okay, Peter. It's okay if you're not alright." He nodded again. "I need you. I need you, Peter." He needed to hear it again, needed Peter to hear it over and over. "Damn it, kid - " Tony broke with a haggard laugh, hopelessly falling around Peter, hugging him with every inch he had. "I love you more than anything."

Peter crumbled into sobs in Tony's arms, held onto him like his life depended on it. 

"Stay here. Stay with me. You're here." Tony murmured, rocking Peter, soothing him. He could never let him feel lost again.

Grass shuffled around them and a hand plopped onto Tony's head, mussed his grimy hair. He peeled his face away from Peter's cheek to look up at Steve's glistening grin. His face was smeared with tears, glittering in the moonlight. Steve whispered, his voice happily weary, "Thank you."

Tony could hardly understand, he didn't deserve it, but then Sam flew into them and wrapped them all into a hug, and soon after Bucky was snuggled between him and Steve, and Nat, and Okoye, T'Challa, Wanda, Thor was an intense addition, and Bruce- so many, Tony lost count. It was all of them, all here.

"Is it okay that I actually love how cheesy this is?" Peter's cracking voice was muffled within the crushing hug.

Sam laughed. "Couldn't go with the usual, 'this is getting a little too mushy'?"

"Nah, 'cause then it wouldn't last as long."

"Okay, guys," Tony sobered, though not without squeezing Peter a little tighter. "Think a group hug might feel a little more authentic at home, instead of in the middle of nowhere. Also, wouldn't mind getting as far away as I can from the last spot we saw mutant Barney the Dinosaur, no matter how dead he is. Think we've all had enough of the gloating at the destruction of the bad guys, right, Thor? Star Pony?"

Quill's protest was drowned by Thor's over-flowing laughter--Tony didn't think he got the joke--but gradually the hug eased apart. All but Steve, whose hand seemed to be cemented to Tony's head, petting him, heavier than it looked.

"I haven't heard you talk like that in a long time, buddy," Steve said, affectionate. “And did I hear you scold the kid for _language_?”

Tony smiled appreciatively. "I..." He chuckled nervously, losing his breath. "I think we disappeared with everyone else." 

Steve's hand slowly slid off of Tony's head, lingered, with something like sympathy. Tony guessed he was feeling just as out of place as Tony was, uncertain of how to act, of how to exist now.

Peter was still cuddled in Tony's arms, like he belonged there. Tony looked down at him and couldn't help but smile. Peter's eyes were as deep as the universe, as unreal.

"Okay, time to get home," Tony announced, everyone still buzzing around him. He said again, musing, "Home..." Tony closed his eyes. "Wait... hey, Cap," Tony wondered. "I can't remember, which way's home?" He opened his eyes and looked around. "Thor? You gonna give us a lift?" The thought was suddenly aching in his head; _where was home?_ Had it been so long since he had been home, that he had forgotten? Was that possible?

"Thor? Thor Airlines?" Tony said, then Peter rustled jarringly in his arms. 

He looked down at Peter. But Peter looked _wrong_. Tony's mouth fell silently open in horror. 

Peter's skin was moving, like something was crawling under it, like it was melting on his skull. Lines sunk in, withered him, took him through many years of morbid aging and in seconds he was so old Tony couldn't recognize him. Tony couldn't move. Only Peter's eyes were still the same, still held the universe in a way that didn't look right. His eyes hadn't moved from Tony's face, a silent plea, as if Tony should have been able to save him from all of his shaking and gasping as he suffered all of the illness and fatigue that came with age. Tony had to do something, there was something he had to do, but he only clung to Peter and stared and watched.

Peter raised one shriveling arm, and placed his hand on Tony's head. It was heavy.

"It's..." Peter sucked in a breath that rattled and snapped through his bones. His other hand crawled up to Tony's face, gathered thousands of tears on his fingers. "...okay. I... _know_."

Tony's face cracked with an animal sob, stripped of restraint, down to raw desperation and anguish. Even if Peter knew... Tony should have been able to say it. He should have told him, over and over, that he needed him, that he loved him. He couldn't do anything, he couldn't move.

Peter sunk against his chest, limp. When Peter stopped breathing, Tony screamed.

He pillowed the back of Peter's head in his hand, cried all over him, kissed his hands.

And that's when Tony realized - he still felt the hand on his head.

His body was so dried-up from sadness, and now it twisted, crackling, nauseating, as he realized the night had become so dark that he could see nothing beyond Peter's body. There was nothing there.

"Oh, Tony..."

His heart was seized by that voice which echoed sick divinity, severed him into pieces, and yet he still struggled to crawl out of crippling sadness, to fight his way into anger.

Fingers larger than his head traced over his hair, stroked his face. "Do you understand now?"

 _He had believed it. He had thought it was_ real. _He had let himself fucking BELIEVE IT ALL._

"I treat you as I would anyone else. I have been fair to you, because you are the same as anyone. I am indiscriminate. You just want to be happy. I understand that that is why you keep trying to destroy me. But if you destroy me, then you destroy the happiness of a perfect universe."

_None of it had been real. Peter hadn't been real. Peter hadn't really known. He didn't really know, and he never would know, what Tony needed to say to him._

_And Tony let him die._

_Thanos had made Tony live a fake reality, a fake reality that he could feel and hear and see and taste and watch Peter shrivel up and die over and over inside his head_  forever _-_

Despite what the monster had done, Tony's anger wasn't for Thanos. And now, surrounded by nothing, that was his entire reality; anger and guilt.

"You wanted so badly to tell him how you felt. You wanted to see your dearest experience life, to experience death. Do you see? Be grateful. I let you live your happy ending."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm sorrryyyyyyyyy i'm so dead on the inside. No plans for any more parts yet but it ugh it might make me sick to leave it like this
> 
> Update: I'm writing another chapter … happy face?


	3. Going Through A Strange Tunnel

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for your very emotional comments lol <:D I hope you like this addition to the story. It has taken on a life of its own now :)

ONE YEAR LATER

 

Tony's living room revolved around him like a Picasso nightmare. A shard of his couch floated past his head, and his kitchen counter was warping into an arch beside him. 

He hardly noticed. He was consumed by the sight of Peter. The boy stood with his back to him, at the only window that wasn't crawling around. Burnt light poured in, wrapped him in a halo of orange. It was a dusty, nauseous shade of orange. The window looked out onto the desert of another planet, onto the scarp of rubble where Peter's existence had crumbled away in Tony's arms.

Peter turned. His body was confined inside of the Spider-Man suit that Tony had built for him, though maskless, his face free. He looked at Tony as though Tony was the most terrifying thing he had ever seen.

His voice was thick with tears when he spoke; “Mr. Stark... why?” It hit Tony like a building dropped on his skull. “Why did I disappear?”

Peter took one trembling step towards him and plead, a hand reaching out, helpless. “Why? I don't want to die.” His face was smudged with the dregs of battle and crying. 

Tony could feel the devastation twitching through his face, itching to burst out. It was so hard to keep his arms pinned to his sides, to ignore Peter reaching for him. “You're...” He uttered, his throat swollen; “...not _real._ ”

Peter's face broke into despair, his eyes clouded, dark. “No... why? Why?” He choked, tears like gems tumbling down his cheeks, sparkling. “Mr. Stark, please. _Please._ Don't let me die.”

By now Tony was shaking, his eyes rolling up to the ceiling, to the glass puzzle-pieces of his living room, anywhere but at Peter's face. “You're not the real Peter.”

“Please, oh _please.”_

“You're not real. You're not real.”

“Mr. Stark, no!” Peter cried, falling against Tony's chest and scrambling for his comfort, burying his face into his shirt. “Please! Stop! Why are you doing this to me?”

It was too much to bear. Tony gasped, his hands clasping to Peter's arms with a strangled, anguished laugh. He gritted his teeth and looked around blindly as if for strength, as if for help, as if for anything to help him realize this boy _was not real._

“ _Please!”_

Tony could feel the warmth of Peter's tears seeping through his shirt.

“ _Why, why?”_

He could feel the warmth of Peter's arms, growing fainter. 

“ _I don't want to go!”_

“STOP!” Tony screamed. “STOP THIS! Enough! ENOUGH!”

Then Tony was sucked out of the broken living room, out of Peter's crumbling arms, and flung back into his own dimension.

Immediately he doubled-over, gasping, and right before he face-planted into the carpet, Dr. Strange caught him in his arms.

“Breathe, Tony,” Strange demanded in Tony's ear, his voice possibly the worst candidate for an ambient sound machine.

But Tony's lungs were still pumping at a capacity beyond his control, and he was fighting the impulse to cling to Strange like a koala. They grappled for a moment as Tony tried to push away, and eventually they broke apart.

Strange scoffed. “Well. That was about as effective as I thought it would be.”

Rolling his eyes, Tony shot back, “Maybe you should read up on systematic desensitization and cognitive behavioral therapy, _Doctor_ , or are big-boy words beyond your PhD?”

“I'm a doctor of medicine, not psychology. I only agreed to use the astral dimension and sensory manipulation to help you because _you_ agreed we would try therapy my way if your way was insufficient. Seems to me it's time for a different method.”

“ _No._ No.” Tony shook his head, began pacing as his breath found stability. “I just need time, to teach my brain the difference between real Peter and... the Peter that Thanos put in my head. No one else should know about this. You're the only one who knows what's been going on in my mind since we canceled Thanos's _The Giver_ reboot, and that's not even by my choice.” He punctuated that sentence with an accusatory glare as he anxiously put together a cup of coffee.

Strange glanced away, sympathetic. “I'd... apologize if it was reasonable by any licensed professional's standards to bottle up your trauma. But if I hadn't found you when you were having that panic attack, I doubt you'd be doing very well for it.”

Tony threw his arms up, exasperated. “Who walks into a bathroom when the shower is clearly running!”

“You were screaming.”

Tony raised his eyebrows, caught between fuming and wisecracking. “I can give you at least one very good reason why someone would be making noises in the shower.” Tony's lips barely grazed his mug before he lowered it back down; “And I did _not_ give you permission to see my junk, so if you – if you would just use your mind powers to erase that image from your memory – Thank-you. For all I know you're sending Snapchats from your mind.”

“Tony,” Strange warned.

“And another thing - why don't you mind your own damn business? This isn't the first time I've had to deal with fucking trauma in my life, so I think I know a thing or two about how it's going to work for me!” Tony slammed his mug onto the counter and it shattered in his hand, steaming coffee splattering all over his arm and shirt. Hissing, he folded over the counter and pursed his lips, fists white-knuckled in pain. When he felt Strange's hand on his back and another pressing a towel to his arm, he jerked away – Strange may as well have bitten him.

Tony huffed, his skin prickling under the hot coffee. “You know, it's a _courtesy_ I even indulge your magic tricks. I have a perfectly good program meant to deal with traumatic memories, and I'm beginning to think that my time would be much better spent modifying it for this purpose. I didn't -” Tony groaned, his hands spreading into angry claws, and glared at his arm. The coffee dribbled down it, over the lacerations that had been left from the Infinity Gauntlet. “I didn't even get one _sip_ of my coffee.”

“Tony, wait.” Strange sighed, stepping towards him.

“No! My trauma is not a back-and-forth conversation, you cannot tell me how _I_ feel!”

Strange continued and Tony took a step back, but then Strange was reaching for his face. “Tony - “

“Don't – don't _touch_ me, Gnorga!” 

Strange slid his hand across Tony's cheek, and Tony froze when he realized his skin was wet. Strange indicated, not unkind, “You're crying.”

As he faltered under the intensity of Strange's gaze, Tony felt his heart racing, his skin tingling with icy goosebumps. He looked down, and saw a cold sweat beading along his shaking arm. 

Strange coaxed, “Let's sit down.” He gently pressed Tony back towards the living room, but by then it was too late. Tony felt his blood pressure go bottom's-up, and he was out.

He woke up staring at the precisely-carved edge of Strange's goatee. Strange's arms—and his creepy cloak--were wrapped around him, _cradling_ him, carrying him, and Tony was practically staring up his nose.

“Uh, hey. Prince Charming.” Tony gurgled, spots still popping in his vision, his head full of suds. “Mind putting me down? I don't recall auditioning for the part of Sleeping Beauty.” 

Strange raised his eyebrows in mild surprise. He dumped him on the couch. “You were out for about five seconds. The no screaming is an improvement.”

Tony heard an embarrassing whimper come out of him as he rolled over, into the pillows. He was too damn used to this panic attack thing. “Friday, check vitals.” 

“You're dehydrated, sir, and your GABA levels are low. Would you like a dose of your medication?” F.R.I.D.A.Y. responded.

Pulling a blanket over himself, Tony groaned, “No, but you can make sure our friend here doesn't leave any inter-dimensional portals open when he leaves.”

“Tony. How long do you think it will take before the others notice?” Strange stood over him, frowning. “If you don't tell them, if you don't tell _him_ , he's going to think the worst. He's going to think you hate him. You saved him, Tony. You saved all of us. What was it for if you're not going to spend one of our world's most precious gifts on them – _time_?”

Tony buried his face in the pillows, feeling his tears smear onto the fabric. He heard Strange walk into the kitchen and rummage in the cabinets. “I may be the last one you'd want to be helping you with this. But I _am_ willing to help you, even if it's... not by my terms.”

Strange's footsteps took him back into the living room, and Tony heard a glass of water clunk onto the coffee table.

“And I will be with you when you decide to see the real Peter Parker.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

Tony was waiting at a table in an eatery in Queens called Golden Six. He was early, and he wished he hadn't been. It just gave him more time to steep in his nerves as he read the menu over and over. He had had to tell the waiter a hundred times that he was waiting for someone— _look, when you see a kid, little nerdy looking but a cute kid, sitting here, you can come ask for my order_ —but these people were relentless.

“Mr. Stark?”

It took a moment, but Tony eventually lowered the menu. Peter was standing on the other side of the table, a little nervous smile on his face. 

They hadn't been alone together since...

Tony blinked away the flashes of gut-twisting light that echoed in his head. Blue, yellow, red. “Peter! Grab a seat. Glad you made it.” 

He rearranged himself from the lounge he had sunk into, reached for his water. He was encouraged – his heart rate was normal, no cold sweating. Tony could do this. 

Peter picked up a menu, set it down, looked at Tony, went for his own water then realized the glass was empty and sheepishly withdrew. He stuffed his hands in his lap and looked up again. “So, everything been – Oh - “ Peter crushed himself to the back of his chair while a waiter leaned over to refill Tony's glass, skipping over Peter's. “Oh, excuse me -”

“Are you ready to order?” 

Tony was admiring Peter's innocent charm. This wasn't so bad. In fact, it was... pretty great. “Ah, how about one of the stone hot pizzas?”

“Yes sir, what topping -”

“Everything. Just, put everything.”

“Sure. Will you be sharing with your son?”

Peter nearly choked as he took a sip of Tony's water, and Tony's mouth stretched into an appreciative grin. “Uh,” Peter said, flustered. “Actually, he's...” Then Peter seemed to catch the look on Tony's face, his eyebrows raised and mouth tweaked with sly enjoyment. “Er - “

“The thing is -” Tony cut in.

“Oh, I'm sorry, I was just assuming that's who you were waiting for, with the way you talked about him. Sorry about that,” The waiter shrugged.

“Yes, we'll be sharing,” Tony said with a playful wink.

“Okay, one stone hot pizza.” The waiter confirmed, walking away.

Peter leaned out of his chair, calling after the waiter, “You – you can call me his son if you want, that- that's fine!” He rocked back into his seat, his face pink. “So... cool spot, cool spot.” Peter nodded, crossing his arms over his chest as he pretended to admire the restaurant. He was doing his best to not be awkward, the champ.

Tony chuckled. “Haven't been here before? I'd figure you'd have been everywhere in Queens. No excuse; you've got the most convenient mode of travel in New York fastened to your wrists.”

At some point near the end of that sentence, Peter's face went blank, almost gray. Tony's throat tightened, his hand clawing for his drink. “Mr. Stark...” Peter said, his voice suddenly dry, stranded. “I haven't been Spider-Man since...”

Sickening bursts of color popped in Tony's vision. Purple, green, orange.

Tony was suddenly breathless. “Wait. Hold on a sec,” He almost tumbled out of his seat as his head filled with helium. He grabbed the edge of the chair, his other hand thrusting into his pocket for his pills. 

A blur of motion, too loud and too fast, brought the waiter back to their table, sweeping a tray of pizza between them.

“Stone hot pizza. All the toppings.”

The waiter's voice was heavy in Tony's ears. He stared at the pizza.

The toppings were six stones. The Infinity Stones.

Tony launched up from his chair, knocking it over and stumbling over it. “Pete – Peter... I need to go -”

“Mr. Stark,” Peter said quietly. “Don't let me go.”

“What -?” Tony choked, rubbing his face, pushing his hand through his hair. “I – I didn't – I brought you back, Peter – I -” 

Peter's eyes were hollow, and suddenly his limbs disintegrated into dust.

“ _No!_ ” Tony shouted, grasping his own face, shaking, too afraid to go near Peter. “I _saved_ you, I brought you back! We destroyed Thanos!”

“ _Destroying Thanos won't bring them back_.”

Tony's throat jolted into a knot. He turned around, towards Nebula's voice. Queens had fallen away, was slurped up into a desolate and decaying universe around her. He could barely make out her face, wreathed in the shadow of a dying sun.

“What do you mean?” Tony demanded, angry, and suddenly he was wearing the Iron Man suit he had been wearing that day, on that planet.

As Nebula spoke, a swathe of cold draped over Tony, took hold of him as he relived the presage. “If I'm going to get my sister back, and you're going to get your friends back. Someone is going to have to wield the Gauntlet.”

“Give it to me, I'll wear the damn thing!” Tony was demanding it before she had even finished. He already knew what was going to happen.

Nebula scoffed. “It will peel apart your pathetic human mind, and it _will_ be long and painful.”

“The world is better off down one Tony Stark than one Peter Parker any day. Gauntlet me.”

The next thing he knew, Tony had plunged his fist into the pizza.

Cheese, tomato, mushroom and avocado squished between his fingers.

“Um... Mr. Stark? You okay?” Tony looked up to see Peter staring at him, a bit mortified. 

As Tony realized what he was doing, Peter absolutely had every right to look at him like he was insane. 

Tony carefully removed his hand from the pizza, looked around at the astonished faces that surrounded them. “Uh. Sorry... I...” Tony fumbled, his face hot. He finally blurted, “Who in the hell decided it would be okay to put avocado on a pizza?” He sat back down and scrubbed his hand with the napkin, wincing as he scraped over burns from the cheese. He peeked over his shoulder; no sign of Nebula, or the desolated planet. His watch indicated his blood pressure was somehow... normal?

Peter took a long sip of the water they were sharing. “Okay. It is kind of a millenial thing. I get that. Um, Mr. Stark, can I ask you something?”

“Shoot,” Tony mumbled.

“How many times have you brought me back with the Gauntlet?”

Tony's chest knotted, became dense, crushing the rest of him. He stared at Peter. “...What?”

Peter leaned over the table, towards Tony. His face became distorted with fear, eyes glassy. When he spoke, his voice cracked, like it was being burned to ash. “And how many times was it real?”

“No,” Tony whispered. “No... I...” Realization dawned on him, like a bucket of icy, black liquid dumping over his head. He tried to remember, tried to remember defeating Thanos – retrieving the Gauntlet... he had worn it. He remembered the light, the colors that peeled his bones, snapped his skin, wrenched through his skull. But, even after all of that...

Tony rasped, horrified, “ _I never brought you back..._ ”

But what about Strange? What about Barnes and T'Challa and Wanda?

Tony shoved out of his seat. He stared at the table.

A waiter approached him. “Sir, sorry, were you still waiting on someone?”

Tony looked down, at the empty seat across from him.

Where Peter would have been sitting, if he were alive.

“No.” Tony managed to drop a wad of bills on the table before he hastily squeezed past the waiter and left the eatery.

The ride home was a blur, another flux of the imagination. When Tony got into the compound, it was dark and quiet. Deserted. He could make it to his bed without being harassed.

But wizards had the ability to ruin such luxuries. “Tony, what happened?” Strange was in his face, yet again, through a portal of 4th-of-July sparklers.

Tony edged past him. “Nothing happened. Shouldn't you be off haunting kid's dreams?” Tony kicked off his shoes and dropped his coat and pants on the floor, making his way towards the bedroom.

“Oh, for the love of...” Strange groaned under his breath. “Tony. I thought you were going to call Peter. Steve told me -”

“ _Peter's not real!_ ” Tony screamed, wheeling around. All at once he was panting, hands balled into fists and teeth grit so hard the muscles in his cheeks were aching. A migraine was piercing through his skull, and his blood was spiking through his veins. “Peter's. Not. Real.” Tony repeated, as Strange watched him in disbelief. He snorted, before turning and marching into his bedroom.

Tony hesitated with his hand on the door, poised to slam it behind him.

Eventually, he lamented over his shoulder; “And neither are you.”

He left Strange standing in the hallway like a rejected stray. Tony didn't hear the crackle of his portal.

Hallucinations didn't need a portal to disappear.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> T.B.C...


	4. Fight Alone

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally got the chance to write more of this. :)  
> Click 'more notes' to see the content warnings for this chapter.

 Who was he kidding. He never slept anymore.

And he couldn't stand being alone with nothing but his thoughts, thoughts that cut him open and made him bleed blood that wasn't his. There was something else in his bloodstream now, spilling a past voice into his head that he couldn't escape.

_If you were to use the Gauntlet... the injury to your body, to your mind, to your very soul, would be extraordinary._

Tony swiped away the holo of an Iron Man schematic that had been hanging, untouched, in front of his face for the past half hour, swiped it so violently that F.R.I.D.A.Y. began to ask if he was okay, that his vitals indicated he needed medication, but Tony tuned her out as he tore open a cabinet. He went for the bottle of scotch, and chugged away as he shoved out onto the balcony.

Sparkling, frosty night air spread over him, sad and hopeless, unaware of its own broken state, like a misled titan whose words still echoed in Tony's ears – _In accomplishing everything I was destined to do, I lost everything_. _I had to._ Stars blinked at him like tears dangling on eyelashes. It was familiar, the night holding him like two gargantuan hands, as powerful as they were... _gentle_.

_You were destined to lose everything, too, Tony. Perhaps we are more similar to each other than either of us would prefer..._

No. The defiance clamored in Tony's head, in his own voice. _No!_

Tony's face was suddenly sore from the anger and guilt that twisted his features.  _He couldn't stand that god-damn voice._ Either of them.

Tony gripped the edge of the balcony.

In one jerking motion, he flipped himself over it, dropping over the edge.

Bursts of red and gold sang to life, whistled out of his arc reactor, clamping like shackles around Tony's chest, his arms, his ankles. His armor wrapped around him, protectively, like home, like a cotton-lined cell.

He hated it. He wanted to escape it, as much as he wanted to never leave it. Like a bottle of scotch.

His thrusters roared to life and scooped him up before he could become a splatter on the earth, and Iron Man shot out into the night like a falling star.

The night reminded him of Thanos. One more demon he couldn't escape.

Tony had been flying for some time, jets at maximum thrust, when he began crossing the sky of New York. Immediately he noticed the flares of red and blue flashing at every corner, the color of screams, of unfair pain. What had become second nature to the city.

Tony growled as he flicked into a sharp descent heading for the nearest one, muttered the first, uncreative, insult he came up with; “Assholes picked the wrong night to do something stupid...”

Iron Man dropped out of the sky like a reckoning, his boots crunching into asphalt just behind a line of police cars and ambulances. He marched up and grabbed the first uniformed shoulder that came in reach.

“What's going on here?” Iron Man demanded.

The cop jumped, flustered, then babbled; “Th- there was an armed civilian reported – we responded the way we were trained – “

Iron Man leaned in, towered over the cop; “Where's the criminal?”

“They – uh --”

“ _Where's the fucking bad guy?”_

All color had drained out of the cop's face and she hesitated. Iron Man distantly realized what he was doing—that he was  _terrifying_ her—but it didn't matter. He needed to put a fucking end to the pain.

Finally, the cop raised a hand, and pointed to the park that the first responders had surrounded. Two EMTs were loading a body-bag onto a stretcher. The presumed bad guy. Iron Man stared, adrenaline draining. He looked around at the cops, the ones who were taking notes and keeping the civilians off of the scene.

Quietly, subdued, Iron Man asked, “What happened?”

When the cop spoke, her voice was pinched and unsteady. “You don't... you don't know? I... It's not my... I can't talk about it, not before an official report, and...”

Iron Man slowly looked away from the scene, towards the cop. She wouldn't look at him, and she was beginning to get choked up. He looked back up, to the park, noticed the civilians in their sweats and pajamas. Noticed them  _wailing_ , reaching towards the body-bag over the fenced arms of cops. 

He stepped towards the scene, ignoring the cop as she demanded he not go any closer and radioed for back-up; he listened to what the civilians were saying, to where their fingers were pointing.

“You took my son! You took my son!”

“I want that damn felon's badge! Take it off right now! You should be sick just wearing it if you have any ounce of good in you!”

“Is there no justice in the world?” Iron Man turned to see a kid, no older than sixteen, standing on the other side of the barrier nearby. He looked at Iron Man with the same anger he had seen in Charlie Spencer's mother, and voicing wisdom and experience that didn't belong in a kid his age. He sounded like Peter. “The cops are supposed to be the good guys. But there aren't any good guys, not for people like me and my brother. Are there?”

Iron Man walked towards him. “What happened?”

The kid's eyes were wet with tears he wouldn't let fall. “My brother got mad, so he went to the park like he always does. He was blowing off steam. Someone saw him and called the cops, said he had a gun in his pocket. When the cops showed up, they didn't give him a chance. They didn't even try. After they shot him dead, they found out the gun in his pocket was just his cell phone. His Samsung Galaxy he had got for himself when he got his promotion.”

The kid stared up at him, and Iron Man couldn't move. He couldn't believe what he was hearing, what he was seeing.

“Excuse me, Sir, you need to move behind the –“

Iron Man swung around to face the cops that had gathered around him, eyes blazing. His suit felt like it was burning, searing into him, his fists curling like red-hot, melting iron.

“Sir, we need to clear the scene, you need to --”

Iron Man moved the cops aside with a press of his arms, holding back fury. He marched through them and towards where the civilians were pointing, what they were screaming at, wailing, crying out for a better world. It was a cop car, pointed away from the park, away from the spilled blood, one person sitting in the passenger's seat. The cop didn't see Iron Man until he was peeling the car door off its hinges. 

The cop flailed and shouted in shock as Iron Man dragged him out of the car and threw him onto the ground. “So, you think you can gun down just anyone? No confirmation of hostility needed?”

Iron Man's fist crawled with shards of metal, transforming into a hand-sized cannon aimed at the cop's face. The cop cowered on the ground, threw his hands up in front of him, dribbled sad excuses as the mouth of the cannon filled with lethal blue light.

“These people put their damn _trust_ in you, and you _kill them?_ ” 

Riotous noise circled them; cops with weapons drawn telling Iron Man to back down, civilians cheering tearfully for justice they deserved, the cop at Iron Man's feet looking lost and empty—like Thanos, the loss and emptiness of his eyes—it was a look that only made Tony relive the feeling of Peter crumbling to dust in his hands.

The nano-cannon whirred as it powered up, as Iron Man's blood pumped with the titan's twisted sense of justice.

The next thing Tony saw was the world swirling before his eyes, his body tumbling and unhinged as a force knocked him off of his feet. 

Dizzy with adrenaline and spiraling anger, Tony shoved the  _someone_ off of him, scrambling to his feet and kicking into the air. Finding his own footing on the ground below Iron Man, a uniformed Steve Rogers stared anxiously up at him. 

“Tony, what are you doing?” Steve said, almost a plea.

Iron Man narrowed his sights on him. “Of course  _you_ would stand up for the loose cannon who killed an  _innocent_ in cold blood. Not dealing with your shit, Cap.” He raised the nano-cannon and fired, sending Steve flying back curled behind a black shield. 

Before Iron Man could turn back to the crime scene, the same shield smashed into his head with a loud thunk, nearly knocking him out of the air. Iron Man wrenched around, jets spitting as he launched himself at Steve with a roar.

Iron Man collided with a braced Steve, who caught him as they both flew across the park and plowed into a street lamp. 

“Tony!” Steve rasped into his ear, clinging to him with powerful arms; “You don't want to do this!”

“You have no _idea_ what I want.” Iron Man growled, trying to yank away from Steve, powering up another nano blast.

Steve thrust a kick into Iron Man's chest right before the blast squeezed off, sending it out into the sky as Iron Man was flung back. Iron Man quickly steadied himself, putting distance between him and Steve, another blast ready to go.

“Let's go home, Tony, let's _talk_. Pepper – she's worried about you, we all are --” 

“You're talking to Pepper now? What more could you possibly do to fuck with my life?” The cannon fired and Steve deflected it with his shield, but Iron Man darted around him and began firing like an automatic. “Pepper left, genius, you'd think a guy as old as you could think of a better lie.”

Steve was ducking behind his shield, swinging it to deflect the blasts, inching down the street as Iron Man flew around him. “Tony, I- I'm  _sorry_ . I'm sorry I don't know what to do.” Steve swatted away the last blast and dropped his shield, standing in the middle of the road and facing Tony. “None of us may have gone through the same thing you did. I can't pretend to know what it was like being trapped with Thanos for so long. That's why we've given you space, that's why Pepper left, and it broke her heart that she couldn't help you. But Tony... you don't have to be alone.”

Steve was bringing up memories, thoughts of Thanos, of the eternal night Thanos had wrapped him in, of the cycling realities he had put him through over and over and over, of the titan's hands on his face. Soft,  _gentle_ . 

Tony dropped to the ground, shaking. Angrily, he strode towards Steve. “God, everything that comes out of your mouth – why should I believe you, when you betrayed me? When you lied to me about my parents?”

Steve sighed, “Tony...”

“No. You don't get it.” Tony marched up to him and jabbed a finger into Steve's chest. A repulsor powered up in his other hand. “I _am_ alone.”

A crack of movement and Steve had sliced off a piece of Iron Man's armor with his shield at the same time the repulsor blasted into him. Steve reeled back, turned the momentum into a roundhouse kick as Iron Man started to take off. Steve knocked him back down, threw punches as quickly as Iron Man could block them, and when a nano cannon began to form at Iron Man's fist, Steve shoved the edge of his shield into the crackling metal. He gritted his teeth, his face red with effort, as Iron Man stared where Steve had halted the transformation of the cannon. Then, with a cry of enormous exertion, Steve dragged his shield down Iron Man's arm, peeling off the armor.

When Iron Man yanked away, Steve held fast onto his arm, even as Iron Man's thrusters kicked on and took them both off of the ground. The nanotech had already re-built the armor, but Steve began tearing into it again, using the edge of his shield as leverage. Thrusters compromised and the both of them scrambling in an ungainly tangle, they clunked to the street in a heap, wrestling for an upper hand. 

Steve managed to put Iron Man on the ground, pinning him under his hips as he stuck his shield into a seam in his face-plate and wrenched it off. Tony blinked up at him, glaring, face wet with sweat and eyes red. The nanotech immediately started piecing together a new face-plate but Steve tore at it with his hands, kept tearing until his own armored gloves had been eaten away and his fingers were bleeding through it. The fighting had reduced to nothing more than clawing and grunting and roaring at each other, Tony's ears ringing. 

He should have been able to kick Steve Rogers' ass, there was no reason he couldn't beat him one on one, no reason Steve should have been able to take him apart like this –

Then Tony's pounding heart filled his ears and his vision was going a blaring white. He glimpsed Steve's face as he was peeling off his armor, and he saw that he was scared, desperate. 

Tony could feel the chill of the night, cutting in between the tears in his suit and Steve's furious hands. Before the nanotech could re-build what Steve had uncovered of Tony's body, Steve pulled Tony off of the ground and wrapped his arms around him. He crushed Tony into an embrace.

Night filled Tony's world, everything going bottom's up, and Tony was shocked back into a memory—a nightmare.

A time where Iron Man was gone, in pieces. Tony was suspended in space, in a darkness that twinkled with frozen thoughts, with dreams that blended like colorful brushstrokes into something real, lines of reality smudged and unimportant.

He looked around, covered in cold sweat, his entire body sore. He couldn't move, he was helpless, all of his thoughts convulsing;  _Peter crumbled, it was Tony's fault. They had all trusted Iron Man, and he had let them die. He could have saved them, he should have saved them, and instead..._

_He had let Thanos have him._

In front of him, standing among the beautiful night, the hopes that sparkled with what could be, was Thanos.

The mad titan smiled. “Are you ready to be happy, Tony?”

Tony yelled incoherently as the Infinity Stones lining Thanos' knuckles became a visceral glow, flinging him into another fantasized reality.

It had become Thanos's method of torture.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warnings: alcoholism, implied suicidal ideations


	5. Thanos' Prison

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A peek into time in Thanos' possession.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I changed the title, cuz the first one was bothering me with how weird it was.

There was always a period of time between unreality and reality, too long, where Tony was stuck in a limbo and unsure of anything. It was like waking up from a dream that was too real, or being unsure if a memory was a figment or really happened. An endless drowning dream entrenched within strung-together gasps of lucidity. 

Except now, it was more than just a dream, more than the haunting invasive thoughts inside his head, so long as Thanos had willed it.

And this time Tony had woken up as Peter leapt into his arms, his graduate cap falling off of his head. It had been real, until the sunny campus and the ridiculously huge bouquet of balloons and Peter's pink-happy face had seared away, leaving only the vast, empty space that Tony was suspended in.

Every time, it destroyed Tony's heart. It destroyed his mind.

“How was it this time?” Thanos murmured, revealed as remnants of the perfect unreality burned away. Tony slowly looked up from his hands, exhaustion not yet enough to prevent him from glaring at Thanos with all the hate he had left. His hands still held Peter's warmth.

Thanos moved slowly, lethargic. Worn out from constructing an entire reality. “You looked like you were happy. The more I use the Gauntlet, the longer I can sustain realities... can you imagine what I will be capable of, Tony? The perfect universe I will be able to create?”

Tony could barely breathe. He was hyperventilating, his hands shaking where Peter had been so real, so happy, hugging him tightly.

 _Peter was gone._ Tony squeezed his eyes shut. He had to remember, _Peter was gone_ , Peter wasn't real anymore, he couldn't let himself believe it every time Thanos threw him into another unreality. 

Suddenly, Thanos's fingers were like feathers on his face, his palm gently cupping his cheek. Tony froze, feeling disgusted, angry, paralyzed. 

“Tony... I understand.”

“Why don't you just kill me?” Tony's own words shocked him. Thanos's fingers were smearing tears on his cheeks.

Almost mournful, Thanos sighed. “You are like me, with a great capacity for knowledge. A great capacity for emotion.”

Tony laughed. Thanos, _emotional._

Thanos tipped up Tony's chin, looked into his eyes, sincere. It made Tony's heart ache even more. “We've both lost everything we hold dear. Losing my daughter... has given me a new way of thinking. I do not desire to kill you. You should take comfort in that.”

“You're a fucking murderer. Aren't you the one who killed your daughter?”

Thanos frowned. His mouth twitched with grief. 

“You're not fooling me. You're keeping me alive as _bait._ ”

Thanos's hand slid off of Tony's face, and he took a step back. 

Tony glared at him a moment more, then dropped his gaze, his chest hurting, his throat swollen with guilt. “You're waiting for what's left of your enemies to come right to your doorstep, because they know I'm alive... and then...”

“There aren't many forces left in the universe that have the desire and power to destroy me, to threaten the balance. What you say is true. So long as your friends know that you're alive, they will take whatever quickest opportunities arise to challenge me. They will bring me everything that could possibly destroy me, to undo what I have done, powers even I am not yet aware of. So I must keep you here. That's why I've created this space for you -”

“ _Prison.”_ Tony derided.

“...To keep you from using your most powerful weapon against me: Your mind. Until they come for you. And then, Tony... they will lose.”

Closing his eyes, Tony turned his face away with disgust. Thanos's fingers carded through his hair. Tony craved his sympathy like a fragmented ego craved shame.

_There was a time Tony had ruffled Peter's hair._

They had been sitting on the couch, watching Gordon Ramsay spit food out on the TV, Peter curled up against Tony.

Like Peter was his.

And Tony was pushing his fingers through Peter's hair, lazy and slow. Quiet, after a day of hero-ing.

“Mr. Stark, I don't think you're ever gonna get the smell of exploded science-monster out of your skin. You smell like a restaurant Gordon Ramsay would be all over. He acts like it's disgusting but you know he's got a weird thing for trashed kitchens.”

Tony chuckled, felt Peter's head shift on his chest. “You don't seem to mind it either.”

“Nah, I'm - “ Peter yawned, “too tired.”

“You did good work today.”

“Really?”

Tony stroked his head. “Yeah.”

Peter snuggled under his arm, glowing in the television light. “Just don't wake up this time, Mr. Stark.”

The warm voice sharpened into a chill down Tony's spine.

_Don't wake up._

Tony's eyes widened as he looked down at Peter, still soft and sleepy. He touched his hair, his shoulder. 

_He was so real..._

A sharp pain needled through Tony's head and he choked out a cry, felt pressure driving into his skull from all sides –

The air was sucked out of him as the couch folded away into nothingness, as the television flickered out, as Peter disappeared.

No, there hadn't been a time when Tony ruffled Peter's hair.

Tony woke up gasping and twisted up, gaze darting around, seeing nothing but empty space and streaks of starlight. The Prison.

A sob stuttered through his grit teeth. He cried what looked like oceans that filled his vision to the fictional horizon.

“I'm surprised...” Thanos said, disappointed. “You shouldn't be able to alter the realities I make for you, or break them. How did you do that?”

Tony was still catching his breath, his chest seized up and killing him.

“You really are a unique power, Tony.” Thanos stepped towards him where he hung, trapped in weightlessness. He reached out, traced his fingers up Tony's arm, settled on his shoulder. “I am glad it was you that came for me.”

Thanos's eyes glinted, too shiny, too soft, as he stared at Tony. Tony could feel himself shivering under his hand. 

“Why do you insist on being so miserable?” Thanos said. “Does being with Peter Parker not make you happy?”

Tony's teeth chattered, hard to pry apart, to speak. “You're _sick._ ”

Thanos sighed, then gently sat down, and Tony felt space move around him until he was sitting next to Thanos. “You think me evil. But what about you? I've seen into your mind. You think yourself alone. Now, how selfish is that? To think you're alone, when there are beings giving up their lives trying to save you. What does that make them?”

Tony couldn't look at Thanos, couldn't look at himself. Everyone that was left... Rhodey, Bruce, Nat, Steve. They were all going to die because of him. Look at him with cold, empty eyes, their voices whispering _don't blame yourself,_ and that made it so much worse _._ All because he hadn't been able to stop Thanos himself.

“You see, I've noticed something about you, a piece of you that is uniquely human. No matter what kind of happiness I grant you,” Thanos unfurled his golden-plated fingers in the air, gem-colors glinting across the tips; “you dig yourself into this state called depression. Sadness, hopelessness. Debilitation. Most creatures in the universe are capable of sadness, yes, but humans... humans, they spread it like a plague. The force their depressive, incapacitating states on other humans, and other races. You could spread it to all corners of the universe... and then what would my sacrifices, my destiny, have been for?”

What Thanos was suggesting curled like claws around Tony's throat, suffocating him. Tony couldn't stop a whimper from stumbling out of his mouth as Thanos leaned against him.

“Tell me, Tony, would you allow the existence of something that would cause pain and suffering to the whole of the universe, if left untended?”

Tony shuddered. “ _Stay out of my head...”_ He had to stop Thanos from using him to get  _stronger._

“I wish I could make you happy, Tony.”

“ _Stay away from me.”_

“Shh, I know. I know how hard it is to lose what you love. That is why I need to keep trying.” The stones began to glow on Thanos's hand.

“No. _No._ ” Tony groaned, his voice strangled. He couldn't stand the thought of seeing Peter anymore, of losing him again, it never, _never_ got easier.

“Are you ready?”

“ _NO!”_

Night peeled away, ripped off of his eyes, white spilling in beneath it, pressing to all edges of his vision. It swirled into colors, coalesced into two shapes that solidified and formed something familiar. Golden hair, pale skin, blue eyes; black hair streaked with silver, a sharp nose, a devilish goatee.

Tony launched up, swinging his arms, blinking wildly.

“Tony, calm down, you're here,” Doctor Strange soothed in his cantankerous voice, catching one of Tony's arms while Steve Rogers caught the other.

“Hey, hey,” Steve comforted in unison, his soft eyes too damn sweet and coaxing.

Tony panted, looking around the room. His bedroom. “What - ?”

Steve leaned closer to him. He was sitting on the edge of his bed. “You passed out in my arms, on the street. I brought you home.”

“You had a severe panic attack, sir,” F.R.I.D.A.Y filled in.

Dazed, Tony sat back against the pillows, then eyed Strange. “I might have another one,” He grumbled, hoping the hallucination would get the idea and go away.

“Listen, Tony. Before you kick me out, I need to tell you something,” Steve said, and Tony noticed his hand was still wrapped around his arm. The skin there was mostly scar tissue, ruined by the Gauntlet. He was useless, couldn't even use it, couldn't do anything for the people he loved.

“You're amazing. You're incredible, at everything you do.” Steve wrapped his fingers around Tony's hand, smiled sadly. It was sympathy, obligatory, Cap just needed Iron Man back up-to. But even those resignations didn't stop Steve from blowing Tony away. “You're...” He laughed, like he knew he was about to sound ridiculous; “an invincible hero.”

There was no way Tony could believe those words. But his heart was pounding like he could.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A ?? somewhat not-devastating ending, for once ??


	6. Will It Ever End?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for comments, they really help keep me going on this!<3

Voices curled into his head, muted by a dreamless sleep.

“ _I appreciate you collecting him off the street, but it's..._ really _not necessary for you to stay.”_

“ _Tony...” His voice was forlorn. “I need to know what is going on. I'm not going to leave this time.”_

“ _Fantastic gesture. I'm sure he'd love an invasive heart-to-heart with the man who lied to him, betrayed him, nearly got his friend killed, partnered with the murderer of his parents...”_

The laundry list crackled into incomprehensible, red pulses, until Tony found the strength to tear his eyes open, looking for the owners of those voices.

It had been Strange and... was it... Steve? The recollection was quickly slipping far away from his reach, like a dream that would never be remembered.

Then Tony got a better look at his surroundings. He wasn't in his facility. He was in a bedroom, but it was shaped in swooping bronze architecture both vintage and contemporary. Tony recognized it as the Sanctum. 177A Bleecker Street.

Great. Now he was waking up in a dream. He must have been; there was no explanation why he'd suddenly wake up in the Sanctum, especially not when Doctor Strange was gone. Was he beginning to hallucinate Steve, too? He couldn't tell the difference anymore... he never had been able to tell the difference. He was stuck, stuck never knowing what was real, never knowing what real even meant anymore, was he better off _dead -_

“Sir, I'm putting you back to sleep.” It was F.R.I.D.A.Y. Then he noticed the molecular IV on his arm, inverting medication through his skin.

Tony's world faded, and so did his terrorizing thoughts.

 

* * *

* * *

 

Waking up alone in the Sanctum would have been disturbing and disorienting if it wasn't for the bedside service. Tony woke up to the smell of steaming pancakes, strawberries fresh-cut and just the right amount of ripe to be pooling in juices, and vegetables roasted in savory seasoning. He had never been so hungry.

The minute he began to eat, Doctor Strange knocked on his door and swept in.

“Good, you're awake. I didn't want to leave without saying something – there's a cosmic anomaly occurring in eastern China that I need to attend to."

“Yeah, _okay,_ and what am I doing here?” Tony asked the immediate question through a mouthful of pancake soaked in syrup.

“Ah. Sometimes getting away from home can do the mind good.” Strange explained, not-so-convincingly, as he went into the closet.

“Did... Didn't Steve take me home? Or was that just another hallucination?”

Strange didn't meet Tony's eyes as he retrieved a hanger of clothes and hung them out. “No. It was not a hallucination.” He was acting awfully bothered. Tony thought he'd be happy that Tony hadn't had yet another elaborate one of those.

Sighing, Strange sat on the edge of the bed. “I brought you here because you're not protected at the compound.”

“You're joking, right? That facility was built with security up the wazoo,” Tony laughed, sardonic.

“Security effective against everything _but_ other Avengers.”

It took a moment for the suggestion to register. Tony put his fork down and stared at Strange with suspicion. “You're keeping Steve away from me.”

“Yes. He's not a healthy addition to your stability right now. You've made that clear on your own, with what you've told me about your pasts.”

Tony groaned. “Okay, could you just, please not lie to me and treat me like your teenage brat? Please? Appreciated.” He rubbed his face, frustrated. “You're lucky my heart is in my stomach,” He grumpily shoved another forkful into his mouth, then added; “and that I agree Steve Rogers is the ultimate ass.” Tony wouldn't admit how curiously nice it had been to wake up to that face.

Strange reached forward, took Tony's hand. Tony looked up at him as he chewed, his breathing slowing down, calmed by Strange's touch. Psycho-therapy was really some conduit to bond-forming.

“Tony, stay here.”

Tony laughed. “Uh, I've spent one night and you already want me to move in? At least hypnotize me with a love spell, first.”

“No, Tony, stay with me – stay -” Strange was suddenly anxious, the edges of Tony's vision darkening, the grip around his hand tightening.

Tony's heart sunk to his stomach. The reality breakdown had come with no warning this time, no signs, no build-up of panic –

Tony dropped, flopped into darkness, fell away from Doctor Strange and the Sanctum.

Everything went black.

 

 

* * *

 

“You are so determined to sentence yourself to a life alone. How did you get here, Tony?”

Tony's eyes were open, staring wildly into darkness. Thanos's voice was like starlight, twinkling in his ears, just enough to reveal the quietest of his thoughts; he had come here on a suicide mission, so long ago. He was going to take Thanos down himself, and let himself be destroyed to bring everyone else back.

Thanos sighed. “But, I cannot criticize you... I had sentenced myself to the same. If not for you, we'd both be alone.”

Darkness peeled away, revealed shards of orange beneath it, burnt and subdued, the color of sad piano notes. Tony's limbs suddenly had weight to them, disorienting but a relief, and liquid pooled up to his waist where he sat. He was sitting in shallow water that stretched to every horizon, every wall.

Across from him, Thanos sat too, the spaces between them calm and resonant.

Thanos raised his hand, gestured across the expanse. “This is my Soul Realm.”

Tony shivered, the skin around his eyes crackling with long-dried tears. Thanos had put him through many different realities, many different lifetimes. Was there something left for him to do?

“Few beings exist in the universe that understand the mind and soul, as well as the unique way they are connected to the human. There is no amount of human relics and science that could easily fix what has become of you, Tony. To do that, you'd have to first understand what is wrong. Do you?”

Listening to Thanos was slowly cutting an open wound. Tony looked up at him, and Thanos slid his hand over Tony's cheek.

“No. You couldn't,” Thanos said, sympathetic. “Look.” He nodded to the side, and, slowly, Tony complied.

Peter Parker was there, standing in the water.

Tony closed his eyes on fresh tears, turned his face into Thanos's palm. He couldn't recall the moment he began needing to feel Thanos, like he needed to feel the blood in his veins.

“Tony, _look._ Open your eyes.” Thanos pushed his chin to turn him towards where Peter was standing. “This isn't an alternate reality. Peter Parker is here, with us. This is his soul, stitched together with your memories.”

When Tony peeled his eyes open, he saw Peter again, Peter examining his own hands, his body, like he didn't believe he was real. Like he had just woken up from a long sleep.

“Come, child.” Thanos reached out to Peter. Peter blinked like a newborn kitten, confusion innocent on his face. But he looked at Tony like he knew him, picked up his pace just to reach Tony sooner. With every step he took Tony's heart pounded a little faster.

“You don't have to be alone, not if you are with me,” Thanos murmured to Tony, and Peter stopped just short of them, to stare in disbelief, to look at his hands for validation that he was really there. Uncharacteristically quiet.

“I don't want you to be alone. But I do need to protect the balance of the universe.” Thanos raised his gauntlet and poised a snap on his fingers; Tony's eyes went wide and he choked on the painful memory, but Thanos kept him steady. “You'd like Peter Parker to stay, wouldn't you?”

Thanos stood and pulled Tony up with him, stroking his hand down his back. “I hope that you understand, if you were to take the Gauntlet, if you were to use it,” He took Tony's face in his hand, pulled Tony's eyes away from a curious Peter; “the injury to your mind and soul would be limitless. You would be tormented by an ever-shifting existence between realities. You would question the existence of everything and everyone around you, for eternity. Perhaps even in death.” Thanos's words seeped into Tony, the same as his eyes, his touch. “A lifetime like that... it would not be worth existing at all.”

Tony was sinking into Thanos's grasp, allowing it, inviting him in.

“Your mind and soul can be fixed, you can be happy,” Thanos said as he held Tony, and turned to Peter. Tony couldn't help but hear the word in his mind; _family –_ all three of them. A mutant version of it. The ache churning in Tony's blood was mixed with a note of hope, a note of a song Tony had never heard before. The hand on him was gentle. It was the only thing keeping him alive.

_Did it matter if Peter was real or not?_

Thanos continued, “As long as I possess the Infinity Gauntlet.”

Tony felt Thanos flowing into his bloodstream, and he didn't hate it.

He only hated himself when Thanos wasn't there.

 

* * *

 

He woke up in his own bed, in the Avengers Facility. It was a day after he had woken up in the Sanctum, his stomach growling, his sheets drenched in sweat and his head hollow. There was a holo vitals monitor suspended next to his bed, the wireless sensors stuck to his chest, and F.R.I.D.A.Y faithfully modifying injections to ease Tony awake without further duress.

Fuck, he was really getting sick of this.

F.R.I.D.A.Y heated a meal for him and played the news while he brought his mind back online, gained his bearings, splashed away the haunting memory of Thanos under the kitchen faucet.

He didn't even try to piece together what was going on, what had been real and what hadn't – what Steve had said to him was still fresh in his mind. _You're invincible. Amazing._

Tony wasn't going to let Thanos's prophecy come true. He wasn't going to live an existence like this.

There was a piece of a headline that caught his ear, compelling Tony's gaze to one of the holo screens floating in his kitchen; _Cop Assaulted By Iron Man To Be Acquitted Without Trial After Fatally Shooting Unarmed Suspect._

Tony moved closer to the screen, watched the footage; it was from the night he and Steve had fought.

His hand went automatically to the arc reactor in his chest – then stopped, just before touching it. Impulsively, he had thought of Iron Man, of saving the world, of saving himself. But wasn't that always Tony's solution? Iron Man was his escape, his liquor of choice, his scapegoat. Tony vaguely recalled the psychiatrist saying something about that, the shrink that did nothing but prescribe him sleeping medication. Well, maybe Pepper's therapy idea hadn't been all for nothing.

Tony lowered his hand from the reactor. Even after the surgery to have the shrapnel removed from his chest, it had only been a matter of time before he went running back to the heart of Iron Man. Maybe this time was reason enough to leave Iron Man for good.

Tony went down to his workshop, set to work on uninstalling the nanotech from his arc reactor while F.R.I.D.A.Y brought him up-to-speed on the cop.

It was a bit impulsive when he had F.R.I.D.A.Y call up Steve.

“Hey, Cap. Apparently there's a protest downtown in honor of my buddy the trigger-happy police officer. Wanna display some real American spirit?”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tony has many weird (and strange) boyfriends


	7. Traitor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony takes Steve to the protest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for the comments and kudos, they mean a lot:)

“You sure you're not trying to take me on a make-up prom date?” Steve called as he watched the window roll down at the back of the limo, Tony's high-school debonair face poised behind it. Steve was tugging on a pair of biking gloves. “Tony, I'm a hundred years old.”

“And a sentimental old fart,” Tony retorted, nodding him over as the auto-door opened.

Steve walked up, smiling appreciatively. “Well, you look good.”

Tony's mouth opened and closed. Steve wasn't getting in, just standing there. Now opening and pursing his lips in a show of mutual awkwardness. Tony was feeling hot under the air conditioning, wondering when Steve would say something, _anything_ , about Tony's _irrational_ behavior. _Come on, Mr. Self-Righteous, let's hear it._

“So, Mr. Stark, are you planning on flying under the radar by stepping out of a limo or would you like to go a little more civilian?” Steve grinned, coy, turning to indicate the motorcycle parked behind him, two helmets fastened to the seat.

Tony's eyebrows flew up his forehead.

He had no good excuse.

Tony jumped out of the limo, clapping Steve on the chest. “I call bitch.”

  

* * *

 

The ride was like an Iron Man-antidote, a rush of speed and adrenaline without the destruction. Wind and the tear of the engine wrapped around him, filling his senses, cool and smooth and easy. No hands at the wheel, just snug at Steve's waist, and a balancing warmth between them. This was much better than a fisticuffs between their egos, Tony had to admit.

The protest was set up across the street from the police department; very organized, with a stage stood up, signs, megaphones, the whole deal. Tony peeled his helmet off and tossed it to Steve, immediately going to work fluffing his hair. Steve's face didn't reflect Tony's zeal; Tony hadn't told him what he planned to do, and Tony figured Steve was going along with it to keep Tony in check should he step out of his arbitrary code of rule-following. Cap and his bullshit morality, ever-changing to fit his impulses. Well, Steve's little babysitting scheme wasn't going to go very well for him.

They grabbed coffee before making their way towards the crowd; Tony got himself a latte, thick on the sugar and caramel syrup. For once he allowed himself the indulgence – it was not something he could skip out on now and stay sane. The flavor recalled homemade pancakes in a cozy bed--embellished like a grandma's--and a pair of icy-soft eyes, gray made out of green and blue.

Steve was smiling at him with gentle amusement. Tony started as Steve raised his thumb to Tony's lip, swiped foam off of his mustache.

“It's funny, isn't it, how we've both ended up here, but we're not really in the same place,” Steve said, disjointed. Tony stared at him silently, gradually offended by the discomfort of the undefined topic. Steve licked his lips with hesitation.

“I... I want you to be here, Tony. We all do. We've always wanted you here.” Steve decided to continue, and Tony dove into his coffee. Sweet, invigorating coffee. “When... Thanos used the Gauntlet. We stuck together. We were a team. Except... you. Tony...” Tony was biting the cup, chomping at it, grinding the paper to mutilation. “...I'm in awe of you. I don't think I could have done what you did. I don't think I could have survived alone, without the team.”

A tremor ran through Tony as Steve slid an arm around his shoulders. “I don't know if we'd all be here today if you hadn't done what you did. I meant it when I said you were invincible. How else could you have survived what happened to you? It's... only natural, for you to be different. For you to be in a different place than the rest of us.”

Tony finally looked into Steve's eyes, teeth grit and jaw tensing. He hadn't asked for this. He hadn't asked for Steve's opinion.

He wasn't ready for it. It all became a tangle in his mind, unsorted, just occupying space while his emotions fought over which of them he would feel.

“But you're not alone, Tony. I can't tell you what it means, that you called me. I'm glad to be by your side again.” Steve rubbed Tony's shoulders with heavy affection, his hand wandering briefly into the hair at the back of Tony's neck.

Tony chewed his tongue, rolled his eyes across the blurred figures of the crowd. His heart was beginning to race. Steve was looking at him, just gentle, he was so ignorant to the storm he was starting inside of Tony –

Tony punched the trigger on his watch, dosing his bloodstream with medication. Suppressing the panic. The present fluttered through his mind; Iron Man was on hiatus, no longer connected to his core, and that was the only way Tony Stark was going to get away from the guilt and the blame and the grief. The suit had become too heavy with it, and he had become caged inside.

But that was over now.

He took a breath, the calm melting through him.

Finally, Tony muttered, “If you're so glad about it, maybe try not to ruin it so soon, huh?”

He crushed his empty coffee cup and tossed it in a nearby bin. He had this, he was okay. No thanks to Captain Fix-Everyone America.

“Sure thing,” Steve sighed, following after Tony. “I've got your back.”

Tony had to bite down on some choice words he had for Steve. _Sure, got my back when I'm sacrificing myself for the team, and when your butt-buddy's life isn't in the line of fire._ But that would come later. Tony came here for something bigger than _them._

He made his way towards the stage, past banners of the face of the kid who was murdered, slogans asking for a fair trial, and signs with even his name, and crude cellphone-pictures of him dragging the accused cop into the grass. _Iron Man Protects Just Us!_

Tony wasn't sure what the direction of the protest was, but he was going to make it very clear. He excused himself past the thickest layer of the crowd, reached back and clawed a hold of Steve's hand to make sure he was there with him and felt Steve clamp eagerly to him in response.

“Excuse me, may I - ?” Tony said to one of the more official-looking people at the stage before hopping up onto it, noting that all of them looked to be in high school or early college. Representation from an older generation might go a long way. He pulled Steve onto the stage after him, who was now looking a bit like a spooked puppy, wanting to follow but having no idea if he was submitting himself to something good or bad.

Tony straightened his sports coat as he stood to the side, waiting for the curly-haired megaphone-wielder to notice him. Steve took the opportunity to ask what Tony was doing, but Tony only smiled as the speaker glanced at him. He beamed at her, teetering on his toes, feeling the rest of the crowd gawking as they recognized him.

Curly-hair barely paused as she went right on speaking.

“Uh, hi,” Tony stuttered, waving to the crowd as he approached her. “Hey.” He smiled again, expectantly.

She raised an eyebrow. “Hi?”

Tony sighed loudly. She wasn't getting the message. “Okay. Mind if I borrow that?” He pointed at her megaphone.

“Yeah,” She said, indignant. “I'm... protesting?” She exemplified the greatest, most condescending teenager scoff of all time.

Tony clapped his hands together, done with it. “Alright.” He straightened, facing the crowd as he toyed with the settings on his sunglasses, improvising. “I'll use my own.”

“Hello New York!” Tony's voice boomed throughout the neighborhood and Tony cringed along with the crowd at the volume; he tapped it down. “Sorry. You can thank your protest-monger for that. Anyway.”

“Who even are you?” Protest-monger muttered.

Tony chuckled, addressing the crowd. “I am Tony Stark. And I am here for you.”

The crowd erupted in applause, and Tony grinned, turning his head down as he blushed. It still got him, time to time. The appreciation felt like home, after so long.

“We have people recording this? Good. I want everyone to know,” Tony swung around and pointed at the police department; “and I want _them_ to know, the police, that I am here to hold them accountable for their actions. I am here to see justice for the families they are sworn to protect.”

More applause, more hope.

“And -” Tony continued, pacing across the stage. “It's not just Iron Man who is here for you.” Steve's eyes blew wide as Tony approached him. He grabbed Steve's arm and pulled him front and center.

“We've also got Captain America.”

The crowd lit up, and Tony felt humbled by the tears he saw sparkling on cheeks.

“We're here today because it's not just the battles out _there_ we need to fight!” Tony announced, pointing towards the sky. “And it's not just the battles overseas, the battles across borders. It's the battles right here, in our own neighborhoods. Captain America—Steve Rogers—and I stand before you today as one of you. We may have abilities that allow us to fight the big leagues, but we're people too. If we don't use our abilities to protect you from the injustices we face from other people, then what good is fighting off alien threats? What good is protecting the Earth if we aren't happy among each other? Rest assured, Tony Stark and Steve Rogers are going to see to it that the NYPD takes responsibility for its actions, and that this _never_ happens again.”

As the crowd cheered, Tony nodded, switching off his voice-amplifiers. He hopped off the stage, shaking hands as they came at him, offering support wherever he could. He could hear Steve calling after him, getting separated by the crowd, but Tony didn't mind.

“Hey,” The voice of Protest-monger scoffed behind him, and Tony turned, apologetic. But she shrugged off the guise of annoyance. “That was cool I guess. Though your message could use some tweaks.”

Tony smiled, a little sheepish. “Thanks for letting me steal the stage for a minute. You better get back up there, they need you.”

She rolled her eyes, like she was choosing not to start this particular battle against why she would need someone like Tony Stark to tell her that. “By the way, Peter was right. You're a lot dreamier in person. Those eyelashes though.”

The name was an instant knot in his throat, a knife dragging through his heart.

The celebration of the crowd darkened around him. Tony's smile trembled as he fought to hold it up. “Peter?”

“Uh, yeah. You know. Parker. Your intern?” She was the only thing moving anymore, Tony's vision turning to static around her. “Oh, I forgot, he quit or something. Sore spot? I don't know, he still talks like you're fam. We did extracurriculars together, you know, like detention. I'm MJ. We're. Friends. Oh, there's Peter.”

Tony felt his insides tearing up as he turned.

 

* * *

 

“Tony – Wait, Tony!” Steve tried as the crowd surged around him, phones and questions in his face. Damn, Tony could have at least warned him he'd be getting them swarmed.

Suddenly, the air ripped open above his head, and Steve looked up to see a hand shoot out through a circle of orange sparks, grab his collar, and yank him through.

The world flipped as he stumbled through it, his feet on solid ground as soon as they had left, and just several meters away from the protest site.

When Steve looked up, he saw Doctor Strange closing the portal. “Hey, thanks,” Steve said, fixing his coat.

Strange marched up to him, cloak sweeping angrily behind him. “Where's Tony?”

“Uh, back there. What -”

“Why wasn't he with you?”

“Hey, calm down, okay? We got separated in the crowd; Tony pulled this stunt - “

“And you _let_ him?”

Steve pulled himself straight, starting to match Strange's frustration. “Why don't you just get him out of there like you did me?”

“Because I saw you first and expected you to do a better job of taking care of him, but you failed that when you decided it was a good idea to let him get on stage at a protest!” Strange's nose stabbed against Steve's, but Steve was steady, holding his ground against the palpable aura snapping around Strange.

“Look, I admit this wasn't the greatest plan, but he's having a good time standing for something he believes in and isn't that what matters?”

Strange laughed, sardonic. “Do you still have that much of the ground-pounder grunt mindset in you, Captain, that your critical thinking is that shallow? This is a protest run by _college_ kids, and can you guess whose college is representing?”

There was only one college kid they all knew. Steve spun around with the realization, squinting at the crowd. “Peter's here?”

Strange shoved past Steve. “Fabulous job at playing deadbeat dad, too. I'm sure Peter never mentioned to you his plans to protest with his friends today.”

Steve jogged after him. “Maybe this'll be good for Tony! He needs to talk to the kid!”

Strange whirled on Steve, just barely stopping his hand from curling into a fist under Steve's chin. “You have no clue what's good for him! You've done enough, sit down before you screw up anything else.”

“You know, you've been hiding Tony ever since Pepper left. What's your agenda? If you didn't keep him effectively sealed in a steel trap, I _would_ know how to help him. You've given me no choice but to find out what's going on myself.”

Strange closed the distance between them, leaning in, threatening; “If Tony wanted you to know, you'd know. If Tony wanted you in his life, you'd be there, and not as an accessory to a public stunt.”

Steve's lips pursed into a white line over grit teeth, eyes narrowed and silent with a calm mirroring the eye of a storm.

Then they both heard a yelp and astonishment ripple through the crowd.

 

* * *

 

The edges of his vision were black, fuzzy, distorted reality.

In the only window of clarity, Tony saw Peter, wearing a hoodie that was just the right color of purple to make his eyes pop. Homey, brown eyes, swimming with anticipation and awe.

Peter spoke. Shy. “H-hey, Mr. Stark... um...” He looked away, pushing his fingers into his crashing waves of hair. Hair that Tony could remember the feeling of, hair he had never really felt. “I... heh, it's good to see you.” It was painfully obvious that Peter wanted to say something else, and Tony was certain he had been going to say _I missed you_. That would have made sense. That was what happened in every other hallucination.

When Tony was speechless, paralyzed, trapped in tunnel vision, Peter swallowed nervously. “H-how's it been?”

He looked _so real_.

“Oh crap, Mr. Stark, I – I didn't mean to make you upset --” Peter's face was suddenly distraught, and Tony knew it was only a matter of moments before he crumbled to dust again. Then Peter came towards him hastily, reached for him, fumbling, coming apart over Tony, as Tony felt a tear fall from the edge of his eye.

But Peter didn't hug him, didn't touch him, though he held out his fidgeting hands like he wanted to.

_This wasn't like a hallucination._

“Geez, Mr. Stark, I'm sorry --”

It wasn't a hallucination, it wasn't a hallucination, it wasn't a hallucination –

“ _Get away from me._ ” Tony said quietly.

“What?” Peter hesitated. “Mr. Stark?”

Peter's voice echoed in his head, every word, a voice he had heard a million times before, words that had never been real. “Get away,” Tony growled, his hands clamping into angry fists. He couldn't take it, couldn't take it, not another illusion, over and over and over – “Stop _fucking with my mind!_ ”

Peter's face twitched with impulsive guilt. “No, I... I'm not...”

“ _Get out of my head Thanos!_ ” Tony cried, squeezing his eyes shut on the vision, unfair and unrelenting; he pulled his fist back, and thrust it forward.

His knuckles cracked into Peter's jaw, the crushing sensation reverberating through his bones, turning into vengeful satisfaction in his veins.

It was a satisfaction that crept up and burst out of his head, raining down on him and filling up the sky with the color of the prison Thanos had built for him.

 _He had been with Thanos for an eternity._ Time was a setting to Thanos, adjustable. Tony had been with Thanos for the length of love, stretched out across the universe.

Tony remembered letting Thanos have him.

“This is the fatal flaw of humanity,” Thanos growled, his voice descending behind Tony like a curtain, as Tony stared at the familiar scene of his living room with tears blurring his vision. Peter was sitting on the floor, the television light flickering over him, as he looked at Tony with confusion and empty eyes. “Your inclination is toward suffering and rejection. You refuse to know happiness.”

“I can't force myself to believe this is real,” Tony murmured, biting, tears cold on his face.

“I have created him from your own memories, I have given you all that you want! In every fantasy I give you, you find a way to be miserable, and that is your own doing.” Thanos stomped to the counter and leaned a fist on it, his back turned to Tony. “Your race is a disappointment to the universe. I had hoped to save you from its chosen fate.”

Tony laughed, a whimpering noise he couldn't recognize to be his own. It startled even Thanos, who slowly looked back at him.

“I never really knew Peter. I didn't know what he loved, what he hated. Even if I did, he would always be more than my memories of him.” Tony turned his head to meet Thanos's eyes. He had begun to talk more to the titan, had begun to find his voice in this nightmare, through some inexplicable tide of human trauma. “If you want to give me Peter so badly, you have the Gauntlet right there. Use it to bring the real Peter back.”

Thanos flexed his hand. “No,” He said, and as level as his voice was, Tony knew that meant he was furious. Or, 'disappointed', as Thanos would say. “That is in conflict with the balance I brought to the universe,” _you pathetic, naive human,_ Tony heard in his tone.

“Then why don't you do us both a favor and kill me too?” Tony said, not for the first time, as if to say _have you had enough?_

But Thanos looked at him with frustration and fondness together, wilting like a garden in a drought. Like he was thirsty for something Tony wouldn't give him.

Thanos said quietly, moving towards Tony, “No. Never.” He curled a hand around Tony's head, pillowing him in his palm. “I hold all the power of the universe in my fist. I will make you happy.”

Tony's voice cracked with another laugh. “After all the tinkering you've done inside my head...” He allowed Thanos to stroke his hair, to swipe tears from his cheek. “And all the time you've spent trying to make _me_ happy, to suit _your_ satisfaction. You still haven't figured it out.” Tony tipped his head back to look up into Thanos's wondering eyes. “It's not my _own_ happiness I care about. It's not my own happiness that gives me will to live.”

Thanos stared at him, his hand stilling around Tony's cheek.

“I can only be happy when everyone I care about is happy. And you destroyed that possibility by erasing them from existence.”

Everything stood still; Thanos held Tony there, in his hand, in his eyes. Unmoving, unreadable.

Until, finally; “I understand.”

Thanos stepped back, and Tony's living room disintegrated, replaced by the cavern of the Soul Realm. Slowly, Thanos turned, revealing a small, green child standing behind him.

Tony had never seen her before.

“This is Gamora. My... Gamora...” Thanos said, his voice stretched with grief. The little girl peered up at him, too emotionless for a child. “This was the last moment in her life when she knew happiness... I... could never make her happy.”

Tony looked from the child to Thanos, remembering what he knew of Gamora. Feeling a sick tug in his heart, pulling him towards Thanos, the grief they _shared._ But Thanos had killed her, had traded her for power; he didn't deserve Tony's sympathy.

“I loved her, and I thought she had known that. And even if she did... I did everything for her. But nothing was enough.” 

A tremor of doubt, of hurt, of confusion wound through Tony. Thanos's voice... sounded too much like his own, in his head.

“I wish I could believe this version of her to be real. But it is as you said.” Thanos was petting her hair wistfully. “I only wish I could invent a new reality, where I could save her. Where there could exist both a balanced and happy universe, and her, happy in it.”

Tony looked at his own hands, vision hazy, exhausted. “You feel guilt.”

“Yes.”

“You regret killing her.”

Thanos let his hand fall away from Gamora. “I don't deserve her.”

“I don't deserve Peter,” Tony echoed as he echoed each of Thanos's confessions, his heart as twisted and sore as Thanos's voice. “I don't deserve everyone who is trying to save me.”

Thanos was in front of him, getting to his knees, looking at him softly. Thanos touched him—he was always touching him—pressing comfort to him, his hand on Tony's face. It was all he could feel, beyond his own guilt, his own regret – Thanos, warm and always there.

“What are you doing to me?” Tony said, so soft it was barely said at all.

Thanos looked at him with sadness, with hope. “Accepting you, the way no one else can.”

Slowly, wilting, Tony let his forehead fall against Thanos's, closed his eyes, and stayed there for eternity.

 

* * *

 

He woke up, screams blaring in his ears and his knuckles smarting, skin snapping open across them. Peter was collapsed in the arms of his friend Ned, his eyes wide and hurt and his face red where Tony had hit him.

Tony had only been gone a split second, and it was all he needed to know that the only being whose companionship he deserved was Thanos.

But he couldn't help looking at his bleeding fist as though it was possessed, and it didn't stop the sight of Peter, crushed in more ways than one, from ripping Tony to shreds.

Pressure filled his head, choked him, drowned him. “Peter...?” Tony cracked, the sky crashing around him.

_He didn't deserve Peter -_

Tony didn't know what to do-- _t_ _here was nothing--_ he reached, trembling, crumbling, towards Peter.

Suddenly, Happy shoved through the crowd, panting and red-faced, and grabbed Tony's wrist out of the air. His fury bore down into Tony. “You need to leave right now, Mr. Stark.”

Everything was a frazzled blur, he barely heard Happy's voice. “I- Peter...”

“Tony -” Strange's voice cut off abruptly as he emerged through the crowd, Steve right behind him.

Happy's glare didn't budge from Tony's face. “Get him out of here.”

“W-wait – I need--” Tony sobbed, but Happy shoved him back. 

“ _No,_ you don't _need_ to do anything but get the _fuck_ away from this kid. When you gave me the responsibility to keep him safe, I took that _seriously. You've_ _lost_ the privilege to be anywhere _near_ him, _ever again_ , do you understand Mr. Stark?” Happy was fuming, angrier than Tony had ever seen him in his life.

And Tony deserved it.

Strange took Tony's shoulder, pulled him back. “Tony, come.”

Jolting, Tony twisted and plunged his fist into Strange's chest.

_He didn't deserve Strange._

Strange stumbled back, startled, fumbling for a reaction.

Tony sobbed a laugh. _Oh god, how much of this was real. Had been real._ “Don't tell me you're not a hallucination.”

Strange's gaze flickered to the crowd surrounding them. “Please... let's just go home.”

Clutching his chest, Tony glared at Strange, betrayal twisting like a knife. _Was he fucking real?_ He groaned with the visceral pain of confusion, breath coming sharp and labored as he looked around at all the faces, all the eyes, staring at him. “Thanos... Thanos!” He cried, desperate; “Wake me up! No... no this can't...!”

This time, it was Steve that moved in on him, strong arms and safety. Tony stuttered back, before resigning himself to what he had to do; launching himself at Steve, tackling him down along with the pain and frustration and betrayal.

“This isn't real! This isn't my life! None of you are real!” Tony screamed, wrestling with Steve, the same he had wrestled with Peter illusions so many times, the same he had done before waking up in the prison.

Steve was being too careful, bending under Tony's writhing and lashing, and eventually Tony pried himself free and leapt back up. Panting, he growled at the Steve lying at his feet; “Get out of my god damn head.” _He didn't deserve Steve._ With another roar, he pounced for Steve's neck.

Then a portal opened up under him in a crackle of orange, and he flew head-first into the floor of his living room.

The crowd disappeared, all the noise along with it.

There was only the buzz of appliances in the kitchen, and the damp weight of silence.

His head was pounding. Tony curled into a ball, clutching his head, shuddering, about to burst. He broke apart, the pressure spilling out of his eyes and his mouth and his heart, his ears throbbing with the sounds of his own desperate sobs.

_He wasn't waking up._

It was real. Strange was real. Peter was real.

The whole world was real, and the whole world hated him.

Tony cried, wailing, howling agony in an abyss of worthlessness, crushed and humiliated and a pathetic splatter on the carpet. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and we're back at square one.
> 
> Or, square negative one hundred.
> 
> :(


	8. Tony's Poison

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THANK YOU so MUCH for the comments on my last chapter! I'm sorry it's taken so long to update. Your comments really motivated me to get back on it. 
> 
> To answer the question about being unable to tell what's real and what's not -- unfortunately, that is totally intentional. I intend for the reader to be just as fucked up as poor Tony. Hopefully it's not frustrating!
> 
> I'm VERY sorry for making you wait! I hope you enjoy this, though it's a bit short. I'm working on more though!

Water poured down on him, filled his mouth, spilled over his skin. It was bright, cold, standing on the edge and looking down into a comfortable, painful death he would never be good enough to deserve.

Drowning.

But Tony couldn't stay under the shower very long, couldn't close his eyes and imagine what it might be like, for long – closing his eyes meant depriving himself of the easiest form of sensory distraction, meant trapping him with thoughts that smothered him.

He wasn't sure how he got himself off the carpet, ended up in the shower. Blinking away soreness from his eyes, Tony looked at his hands, stared at their water-logged, soggy skin. Leaned against the wall. Sobbed, again.

Tony couldn't imagine a reality where he could ever step out of this shower. Not if this reality had a Steve, had a Strange, and had a Peter that he had _– god –_ that he had _hit._

He was every bit the terrible dad he spent his life trying not to be, and _worse._

The cringe of humiliation rippled through him and Tony sank to the floor, under the water; the water swelled and curled. It growled and shrieked in his ears, filled up his mouth and his nose and his eyes –

he fell under –

\--

The feeling of an old friend broke around him like waves as he surfaced and clawed for air. It was dark – where was he? Where had he been –

Drops of water ticked up, off his skin, backwards in time – electric, the ticking of a clock cranking slowly back. They revolved above him, bullets in a chamber, flecks of orange rupturing in them, soft, robotic eyes in a dream.

Orange synthesized into a landscape. Thanos's Soul Realm. Tony sat up, liquid spilling off of him. He moved his hand in the water, feeling it caress and glide along his skin, but he remained perfectly dry.

Dry, nothing weighing him down. He took a breath of the memory, knowing now it was no longer real, but it was all he had to escape from what had become of his reality. _A reality worse than death..._

“You're driven by misguided emotion. For all the power of your mind, your grasp of them persists to be as weak as any human. The plague of your race...” Thanos's voice was as stiff as crystal, and just as smooth, something to be coveted and feared should it become large enough to crush bones. Tony looked, over his shoulder, and saw the titan standing beside him, wreathed in shadow. Like trying to recall a face in a dream.

Thanos bent down, and his eyes came into the light so suddenly their scrutiny pierced the breath out of Tony's chest. Crisp, clawing out of the dream, out of Tony's memories. “I can't stand to see you this way,” Thanos said.

It was everything Thanos had said, back then, when Tony was his prisoner. His words still cut through him, at his throat, euthanasia that separated Tony from life but didn't give him death, and Thanos never stopped, even when Tony had pressed;

“You've taken away everything that made me human... the people I loved, my reasons for living...” Tony spoke to the water, every word as useless as a droplet evaporating before it joined the infinite pool. “Even that wasn't enough. Haven't you noticed? All that's left of me is who I really am.” He felt Thanos's gaze roaming all over him, plowing through his hair, as rough as his hands. “No, I'm worse than the depression you call a plague. What's left of me is nothing but _guilt_.”

Tony remembered vividly when Thanos had sat down beside him, waves rippling, curling around Tony as Thanos crossed his legs. He had sat like that for a long time, watching Tony, studying him, analyzing, nestling him with gaze alone. Thanos had stopped touching him at all by then. Maybe it had been to try a new method of 'fixing' Tony.

They had both lost everything.

Tony looked down, ducking his head so that Thanos wouldn't see him staring at his hands lying soft in his lap.

The present reality surged into the memory, flooded Tony's past self. When he had proclaimed himself guilty, back then, he had meant no more than the feeling of defeat. But now... “It's... it's really true...” Tony said, aloud, in his memory. “That's who I am. Guilt. Guilt doesn't help anyone. I... I... I _hit_ him... I hit Peter...”

Crumbling, Tony buried his face into his hands, into his knees, sore tears bubbling and swelling in his cheeks. There was nothing left of Tony Stark anymore. That wasn't Tony Stark that hit Peter, that wasn't Tony Stark that alienated Strange, and Steve, all of them.

“It was supposed to be Iron-Man! I gave him up, I gave up that tin can suit, and it was supposed to be better – it was supposed to fix me! Iron-Man was the one to blame, not... that's not _me!”_ Tony sobbed, growling, gurgling tears and regret.

“ _Tony,_ ” Thanos spoke in his ear, admonishing, “you're better than that kind of ill-judgment --”

“Am I?” Tony snapped, vacant, crushing his fists into his eyes. “Am I?”

“Yes. You are.”

The silence that followed wrapped in wreaths around Tony, feathery, too light. Eventually, he raised his face from his hands, blinked against the blinding orange realm.

“I... I almost wish I was back here, in this... Pink Elephants, Willy Wonka tunnel ride. With you splashing around in my mind. It's... easier... than being...” Tony trailed off, then scoffed at himself. “Based on that thought alone, maybe I never really was a good person. No wonder, right?” A laugh scuffed over his lips, alien and ugly. “No wonder I have been so graciously served the guilt special at the buffet of eternity. If there's a god, well, my compliments to the chef... you are what you fucking eat.”

“Go on, speak your mind,” Thanos rumbled, gently. “Listen carefully to yourself, you'll hear the irrationality of it soon enough.”

“And here I am, talking to you – you, _poison._ ” Tony whispered, not daring to look at him. Not daring to take another sip of his eyes. “That's what you are. That's what they all say...” Tony thought of how Strange, Pepper, and Steve, all talked about his time in Thanos's prison. As if Tony had to be convinced of it... as if he didn't seem to believe it. Tony repeated the idea again, to prove he believed it; “You're a poison, _killing what's left of me,_ and I can't get you out... and I...” He strayed, found himself about to say something _sick._

“It's not me who is killing you, just as it is not me who is keeping you from happiness,” Thanos said.

Tony squeezed his eyes shut. ' _And I...'_ he fought to keep the remaining part of that sentence out of his mind, out of his conscience.

But the last time Tony hadn't been drowning, _fighting_ against himself and all of the guilt that pieced him together, was...

Opening his eyes, Tony's vision was flushed, _suffocated_ , with Thanos. His lungs stopped, brimming with a dark comfort he could never explain.

Thanos held him there with just his eyes. Heavy, haunting, taking up Tony's entire world – all without touching him.

And Tony was suffocating from it –

Thanos's hands, powerful, solid, lying dormant an inch from Tony –

Tony's throat was closing, swollen with poison –

But he wouldn't, he would never, Tony would _never want..._

_'And I need to feel you.'_

Tony gave in, and dropped himself like an anchor into the water, into a chasm that stretched his lungs, stopped his heart.

And two powerful, solid hands curled around his arms.

Rushed him to the surface, where those hands flowed through him, dipped inside of him until his heart pumped again, pumping blood that was Thanos.

He gasped, water shattering around him as he folded into Thanos's chest, orange starlight showering down into purple warmth.

Tony cried relief, and horror at what that relief was, holding him in its giant titan grip.

“I... I can feel you,” Tony heard his own voice as a whimper against Thanos, too broken to be his own. He swallowed, spoke louder, this time with more dread; “ _I can feel you._ ”

Thanos's hand crawled over his back, sending spider-like shivers through Tony's skin. “I never left you to be alone. I would never.”

“ _No -”_ Tony choked, pushing up enough to stare up at Thanos's blooming eyes, into arms that protected him unconditionally. “No... this... this is a memory. _You_ never did _this_. I keep having _fucking_... flashbacks of your sick playpen. Of everything you did to me. But I never... talked to you about.. I _couldn't_ have told you about hitting Peter because it _hadn't happened yet_! So why are you answering me? Why are you talking to me as if... as if you aren't a knife-in-the-back PTSD memory!”

As Tony's ears filled with a warped, upside-down buzzing, Thanos looked at him almost _pityingly._ The buzzing trickled down Tony's cheeks, icy, seeped into his blood until every vein was crawling under his skin like worms.

Although Thanos's mouth moved, his voice came from inside Tony's head. “Because I'm no longer a memory.”

Tony felt like he had known it, but now the confirmation struck him like a pendulum, over and over.

“No. _No._ ”

“Shh,” Thanos coaxed, his hand suddenly heavy and consoling on Tony's head, fluffing his hair, shaking paralyzing darts down his spine. “You have so much knowledge, Tony. Don't tell me you didn't know, that all of our efforts unlocking the true powers of the Soul and Reality stones would lead to this. Every reality I created, every door in your mind that I opened, every room I stepped into. I became a part of you, the biggest part of you. Then, when you escaped, when you destroyed me—against your better judgment, judgment I, regrettably, failed to mend—you began recalling memories of me. And you wanted to, didn't you? You wanted to remember me. Humans of science know this much of the mind; every time you recall a memory, your mind rebuilds it, gives it physical form with proteins, makes it new and living. However, only you could have done this so remarkably; I realized that, after you displayed power enough to break the realities I was making for you. So? Do you understand now?”

Tony's voice was a squeaky wheel rattling off its axle. “Peter...”

Thanos smiled, and there was more regret in his smile. “Yes, it's the same we attempted to do with Peter. We were so close, you and I, to creating a real Peter Parker from your memories, from your fantasized realities. Interesting, isn't it... you resisted so much to creating Peter that we never succeeded, but with me... you had no restraint. It's been a fraction of the effort we spent on Peter, for my manifestation. Telling, isn't it? Is it that your life has become everything I had warned of?”

“No. No.” Tony was numb, couldn't untangle any other word from his throat. He was still clutching Thanos's solid, real chest. His hands were trembling.

“I'm going to step out of your mind, now. I'm sorry. It will be painful, for you.”

Tony was choking, horrified, devastated – what had he _done,_ everything he and his friends had sacrificed, everything his friends... but, _what_ friends did he have, anymore? What else did he have but this fucking awful fucked up god damned GUILT, and a lifetime of—just as Thanos had said—confusion and torment?!

“WAIT!” Tony grinded out, just as Thanos was rumbling beneath him, like a volcano about to erupt, an illusion about to shatter reality. Tony was breathing heavily, his fingers digging into Thanos's chest plating, nails snapping, bleeding. “I want this.”

Thanos waited patiently.

Walls were coming down around them, the walls of Tony's mind, crashing into the liquid that surrounded them, and the water rolled up into waves until tsunamis stormed and burst and cried freedom and released out of orange into metallic red. Tony looked up at Thanos, grasped fervently onto that gaze as it staked through him, and said, “I want to understand the mind and soul, and its – the connection to humanity. I want the knowledge you promised me existed.”

“Hmm,” Thanos murmured, and it was louder as a whisper than all of the ruby storms churning around them. “You want to know how humans can be truly happy, and what it means to be good. You want to know why all of your good intentions have instead brought harm.”

Tony shoved himself to his feet so forcefully that Thanos jolted in surprise as his arms nearly slipped off from around Tony. Now Thanos was craning his neck to look up at him, as Tony towered above, water lashing around him and sparkling like fire. Tony glared at him, oozing absolute demand. “I need you, you _poison_ , to tear this guilt out from inside me.”

Tony could hear the shock in Thanos's voice, dwindling notes in the shadow of this formidable energy. “And if that means stripping you of your mercy, of your charity?”

Then, Tony found his own hands crawling up Thanos's neck, as invasive and penetrating as Thanos's had been on him. He leaned down until he could feel Thanos's breath on his face, until he felt it stagger, and he said in a voice as thick and dark as tar; “I won't live like this anymore.”

Thanos stared up with eyes that glowed, reflecting the lurid rays that poured from Tony's. He was flushed, awed, overtaken, and it was stark red in his face.

Slowly, Thanos's pushed his hands up Tony's sides, thumbs sliding along his ribs, and Tony jerked back, planting his foot into Thanos's chest and driving him down into the watery ground. Thanos fell back with a gratified sigh, blinking rapidly, allowing his arms to fall spread out to his sides. Tony leaned back over him, over his knee, face dripping from the splash, water turned black. He stared at Thanos like he was the worst kind of creature, deserved death, and pain, and to be torn apart; and, Tony stared at Thanos like he wanted all of him.

Thanos couldn't say no.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really didn't think it could get much worse after the last chapter...yikes<3


End file.
